BIM Spread Speeds Adoption of Virtual Design and Construction

While the use of building information modeling in the U.S. is becoming more commonplace it still has some ways to go before it could be considered the market standard. Steve Jones of Dodge Data & Analytics, showed survey data, at the ENR FutureTech Conference, demonstrating that the United Kingdom—which has mandated contractors use BIM on all public projects by 2016—and other countries are moving considerably ahead in adoption.

Noting recent research findings on BIM adoption by owners, Jones reported that two-thirds of all U.K. owners plan to require BIM on future projects, including 70% of private-sector owners. Also, according to the study, 68% of U.K. owners currently require BIM, with the U.S. rate well behind at 25%. On the positive side, however, U.S. contractors lead the world in using BIM for model-driven prefabrication, with a rate of more than 80%. According to the report, “around two thirds of both public sector (65%) and private sector (70%) UK owners say they will require BIM on new projects they will be starting, compared with less than a third (30%) of US public owners and just a handful (11%) of US private sector ones.”

In Canada, as recently as 2011, statistics showed that BIM take up in Canada was slower than the United States. However the turnaround in recent times has Canada creeping up on the European standards. A 2010 IBC survey showed that 60% or more of commercial and institutional projects in Canada were employing BIM, with use in the commercial and residential sectors approaching the 50% mark.